


you blush like an ocean in love, wild with blueness

by strawb3rryshake



Series: to face god and walk backwards into hell [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Can't bring Hell to the beach, Established Relationship, Gratuitous Displays of Magic, M/M, Prince of Hell Magnus Bane, So I brought the beach to Hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:40:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29017566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawb3rryshake/pseuds/strawb3rryshake
Summary: "Seven years, it’s been. He hasn’t been to a beach since. Has had vivid dreams of visiting one with Magnus, huddled together under a great umbrella. There’d be wine, and a charcuterie board; and when the sunset turned the water red as blood, he’d ask Magnus to lay him out on the sand and do what he wanted with him."—when jay-z said 'i brought sand to the beach 'cause my beach is better'
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: to face god and walk backwards into hell [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123367
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51





	you blush like an ocean in love, wild with blueness

**Author's Note:**

> title from the poetry of nayyirah waheed

_“O madly the sea pushes upon the land,_

_With love, with love”_

_// walt whitman_

“Holy shit.”

It’s not a very professional thing to say, but Alec has been off the proverbial clock for five minutes now so who cares. Definitely not Simon, who is nestled safely in the shadow of an alcove behind him, grinning like a fucking maniac.

“Holy shit,” Alec repeats, “All of this was sand.”

He means the ocean—the _ocean_ —that sprawls out in front of him, great and terrible and blue. It’s surprising placid, lapping gently at the shore like a cat tongues at its kittens. The bubbling white of the foam is stark against Edom’s sable sand.

If Magnus had created it—which he must’ve, Alec thinks, it’s not like it fucking spawned itself—it must’ve taken him weeks. Months. And Alec can’t have been gone that long. Things are busy at the Institute, sure: Robert’s dragging out the divorce proceedings, Clary is using her parentage to get away with every and anything, Brother Zachariah has reported yet another attempt on the Mortal Sword. But only once has Alec sent Jace to a drop-off in his stead. It can’t have been more than a month since then.

And yet.

“Insane, isn’t it?” Simon is saying, bouncing up on the balls of his feet, “It’s so fucking cool. And I got to watch him do it.”

Jealousy flares in Alec’s gut. “How long did it take?”

Simon cocks his head, shrugs. “Ten hours? Eleven? I dunno; he took a lot of breaks.”

Oh.

It must be an illusion, Alec decides. But eleven hours for a trompe l’œil seems a bit much. He peers into the distance, squinting to make out the details as best he can. There are seashells, he notices, littering what has become the shore. Several large outcroppings of rocks rise up near the waterline, slick with seaweed and spotted with barnacles. He catches something scuttling across the variegated sands and figures it’s a crab.

“It can’t be real,” he mutters. There’s no fucking way. 

Simon says nothing, foot tapping out a loose rhythm on the stone. He waits until Alec is forced to look away from the water and back to him, pins him with disapproving glare. “Oh, ye of little faith,” he lectures, “Of course it’s real.”

Alec’s mouth falls open a little. He can’t help it. “There are—there’s fish in there?”

“Yeah,” Simon says, but he sounds a little less sure of himself, “At least, I think.”

Alec frowns. Wonders how much of a risk he’d be taking walking into a magical ocean. Wonders if it will all disappear in a haze of steam the second he puts a foot in.

“The fish aren’t real.”

It’s Raphael, appearing out of fucking nowhere in the alcove, who says this. Simon’s shriek of “ _Jesus_!” is ignored.

Despite the ever-present heat, Raphael is wearing the same black suit he always is, top two buttons on his dark dress shirt undone. He leans, standoffish, against the alcove wall. Alec thinks he looks pretentious. Simon has, on more than one occasion, called him dashing.

“You can say god?” Alec asks without thinking.

He remembers a week where Simon, holed up in Clary’s bedroom at the Institute, had tried and failed to say god in every language he could think of. Had started saying oh my lanta instead and driven them all up a wall.

Simon snorts, shakes his head. “I said Jesus,” he says haughtily, “and it’s easier in hell.”

“Edom,” Raphael corrects him.

A wave crashes against the shore. Alec thinks of a summer he and Isabelle had spent in Majorca when he was eighteen, drinking lemonade out of tiny glass bottles and dunking each other in the surf. The saltwater had roughened their skin and hair, the sun turning them golden. 

Seven years, it’s been. He hasn’t been to a beach since. Has had vivid dreams of visiting one with Magnus, huddled together under a great umbrella. There’d be wine, and a charcuterie board and when the sunset turned the water red as blood, he’d ask Magnus to lay him out on the sand and do what he wanted with him.

“Is Magnus—” he starts, “Can I see him?”

He expects a no. Catarina had met him for drop-off today, sweet little Madzie perched on her hip.

Raphael surprises him with a yes. “He’s been asleep for seventy-two hours, he should be fine. But do not,” he emphasizes, “overexert him.”

“Overexert him how,” Simon laughs, until Raphael gives him a very pointed look and he goes pink, “Oh. Oh um. Yeah. Don’t—don’t sex him to death or anything, god.”

And Alec watches as Raphael smirks, says “Aw. Baby. Lo dijiste.”

“I—“ Simon stutters, “We—“

Alec heaves a tolerant sigh. “I’ll tell Magnus you said hi,” he says, and makes for the stairs.

The path to Magnus’ apartments is quick and familiar. On his way he passes Dot, who waves, and Elias, who doesn’t. There’s a key he keeps on a necklace, in his pocket rather than around his neck, which he pulls out to unlock Magnus’ impressive French doors.

“Hello, Alexander,” comes a voice, low and lilting.

Magnus is awake, perched on the sofa closest to the balcony and its wall of windows. Through the glass, Alec can see the profound expanse of blue stretching far out into the horizon. Beachfront, he thinks stupidly; property value just went up.

(Jace had had a real estate moment a few years back, thanks to Maia and her love of Mundane TV; was convinced he was going to be the next Property Brother. Alec still doesn’t know what that means).

He finds himself a spot on the couch, close enough to Magnus to knock their knees together. “Hey,” he says giddily. Feels his heart rate pick up a little.

Magnus is in nothing but matching silks: a robe loosely belted, a neat pair of sleep pants. On his feet, lambskin smoking loafers, which he proceeds to toe off, curling his legs underneath him as he snuggles into Alec’s side.

“I thought I’d missed you,” he admits; Alec can tell from the drooping set of his eyes that he hasn’t been awake long, “Catarina let me know you’d stopped by.”

He rests his head on Alec’s shoulder, lets his eyes drift closed.

“Did she wake you up?”

Magnus tuts at his concern. “Yes. But not on purpose. I would’ve woken up within the hour anyways.

A quiet moment comes and goes. Alec looks down at him, takes his fill. Magnus is barefaced, his lashes long and straight, his hair spilling black as ink over his forehead. Around them, the languid sun of late afternoon has come to fill the apartment with opalescent light, tinting everything a pale and lucid shade of gold. Alec wishes he was a painter; thinks of Clary and wonders if she takes commissions. He wants all of this memorialized, framed, sitting on his desk at the Institute.

At his side, Magnus mumbles something unintelligible, lost in the space of Alec’s neck. Alec lends him an ear, asks him to repeat it.

“I said,” Magnus sighs, “what do you think of my ocean?”

Before Alec can stop himself, he asks “Are the fish real?”

Magnus laughs at this, bright and resonant. Alec supposes he should feel embarrassed but he is infatuated with the sound of Magnus’ laugh. Would debase himself a thousand times to hear it. “It’s just,” he mumbles, “Raphael said they weren’t.”

"He’s kind of right,” Magnus admits, “There are fish, a whole ecosystem’s worth. But they’re not—hm.”

He pauses, searching for the right words. “They’re not real as in: they’re not living, not sentient. They’re like—toys almost. Like if you caught one and cut it open it’d be filled with goo. Or fiberfill.”

Alec pulls a face. “Weird.”

Magnus laughs again, pretends to be offended. “I’m not god, Alexander. Even I have my limits.”

Must be quite a limit, to include crafting an entire ocean from scratch, in a place where it has never rained—not once—in twenty-odd years. Magnus must see this incredulity in Alec’s face for he grins, pushes his hair up out of his eyes.

“Did Raphael not tell you,” he begins, “how I built this city from the ground up in less than twenty-four hours?”

Alec blinks. “You’re shitting me.”

Magnus shakes his head, his smile turning devilish. “Rome might not have been built in a day, my love, but Edom…” he hesitates for effect, “it’s the work of which I am most proud.”

A look of contentment comes to settle in his face. “I slept for a week and a half after it was done,” he continues, “left Raphael in charge and hoped for the best.”

“In that case,” Alec says, “I’m surprised it’s still standing.”

He gets a smack on the shoulder for this.

“Hush, you,” Magnus hums, biting back a yawn, “if Catarina is my right hand, Raphael is my left.”

“And me?” Alec asks quietly, eyes downcast.

Magnus stills. Places two fingers under Alec’s chin and tilts it upwards. His eyes, when Alec meets them, are syrupy and golden: liquid light. “My heart, Alexander,” he whispers, “you know that.”

“Yeah,” Alec admits, “I just like to hear you say it.”

“Is that so?”

And Magnus is moving to sit fully in Alec’s lap, straddling the breadth of his thighs. His hand he lays delicately at the curve of Alec’s jaw, thumbing across his lower lip. Languorously he leans in, his mouth hovering over Alec’s own; breathing his breaths, dampening the air.

“Hey, hey,” Alec says, panting; heat prickles at the nape of his neck, “Your left hand said no overexertion.”

Magnus ignores him, brushes his lips against Alec’s cheek where the stubble has come in thick and dark. “He worries too much.“

“And Simon,” Alec persists, “told me specifically not to sex you to death.”

Magnus looks sternly down at him. “Alexander. Heart of my heart. You know Simon has no authority here whatsoever, correct?”

Alec furrows his brow, settling back into the couch. It is the singular most comfortable piece of furniture he’s ever sat on. “Here as in Edom or here as in our sex life?”

For a moment, Magnus just stares at him. Then doubles over in a fit of uproarious laughter. His shoulders shake, his forehead pressed to Alec’s collarbone. Alec lets him convulse and giggle as the sun ushers in its golden hour, the timbre of light maturing into a mellow amber. 

“In either case,” Magnus says eventually, settling back on his haunches and wiping the tears from his eyes, “they both answer to me, and I’m declaring their medical advice completely null and void as of eight am tomorrow morning.

“Speaking of,” he continues, “I don’t suppose I could convince you to stay the night?”

Alec’s first instinct is to say no. Things are too tightly strung; too much hangs in the balance. Staying late after drop-off is indulgence enough. Spending a whole night away from the Institute would be greedy, selfish.

But Jace stays at Maia’s more often than not, he thinks traitorously. Izzy and Clary will spend their nights in one room or the other and come to morning briefings wearing each other’s clothes. He has never spent a night in Edom, never seen the inside of Magnus’ room.

“Maybe,” he says slowly, “you could.”

Magnus’ face breaks into a smile that rivals the sun. “Then I shall,” he says brightly, “breakfast tomorrow on is me: literally or figuratively, whichever you prefer.”

He winks. “But definitely in bed.”

Alec watches him slip out of his lap with all the grace of a dancer, robe falling open to reveal a waterfall of silver chain. Somewhere amongst the pendants and jewels is an arrowhead, etched with the initials AL. Alec doesn’t look too hard for it; knowing it’s there is enough.

From his back pocket, he pulls his phone. Shoots Izzy a text telling her he’s spending the night, another begging her to text in case of anything urgent. Seconds later and he’s received multiple messages in quick succession, telling him not to worry, to not do anything she wouldn’t do (followed by several winking emojis) and that she expects a detailed report on her desk when she gets back. 

_Pinche chismosa_ , is his reply, and the phone is shoved back in his jeans. He rises up off the sofa into a stretch, rolling the cricks out of his neck. Through the window, he can see the sun, lurid and low in the sky. In an hour’s time it will have drowned in Magnus’ ocean, swallowed up by an endless tapestry of blue. He wonders if the bedroom has windows like these; hopes the view is just as good.

He’s never seen sunrise in Edom before. 

**Author's Note:**

>  _lo dijiste_ – you said it  
>  _pinche chismosa_ – fuckin nosy ass 
> 
> or at least that’s what i was going for. apologies to all my spanish speakers, je ne parle que français. mille fois merci, comme d’hab, pour être ici xx


End file.
